One True Thing
by BehrBeMine
Summary: Over ten years in the future, Max thinks back on what he once had.


TITLE: One True Thing  
AUTHOR: Elise (BehrBeMine)  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything. Don't sue, I'll cry. ;p  
SUMMARY: Told from Max's POV. Over ten years in the future, Max thinks back on what he once had.  
DISTRIBUTION: Guilty Pleasures - - http://www.sevensoupcans.com/guilty/  
To archive anywhere else, just ask.  
RATING: PG  
PAIRING: Max/Liz  
SPOILERS: Takes place after "It's too Late, and it's too Bad."  
WARNING: Character death.  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I apologize ahead of time for the shortness. There was nowhere else to take it.  
  
  
I can feel my heartbeat slowing and my breath slipping away. I'm more sure of it than anything else I've ever thought to be sure of: I'm dying. I cradle Tess gently in my arms and I can hear her sobs of fear. I should probably be frightened, too. But I'm not.  
  
My strength is failing, and a weakness has come to wash over my entire body, making my bones seem brittle and old. It aches to move a muscle, but somehow a smile finds its way to my face as I think of her. Not the one I hold in my arms; the beloved of my childhood that slipped away.  
  
She exists in my heart still, and I never wanted it any other way. Everytime I close my eyes, I see her face. With each kiss I shared with my wife, Tess, over these years, my lips screamed out to whisper her name: Liz. Like an angel I remember her, and I see her slight form as if in some faint distant memory. Long ago as it was that I last touched her skin, the memory of her exists clear as day in my mind.  
  
My mind searches back years to the day that Liz became informed of the baby that stemmed from my creation in Tess's womb. Michael came running to me, swearing the information slipped; his eyes wild with realization of the repercussions of his mistake, he'd begged me to forgive him. I had. Liz had to have found out sometime.  
  
I couldn't face her. Couldn't stay strong if I saw her baby face crumbling in pain as the tears started to fall. She'd never forgive me, never forget that I had turned away from her and embraced my destiny. And what she could never know is that I never turned away. Always she was in the back of my mind as my hands roamed over Tess's body in bed. But it was better this way - - now she could move on and enjoy a life that she deserved with a human husband and that white picket fence all little girls dream of.  
  
In the sunny afternoon, I hid away from sight as I glimpsed her up on the bleachers behind the highschool. From the other side of the football field I watched, tortured as I was to see her being consoled by someone else. She sat leaning against Sean DeLuca, her tears falling to gently wet his shirt. Although the confusion in his face revealed she never told him what was wrong, still I saw him hold her close and whisper words with such tenderness I could have screamed. None of this was fair. My soul ached to be the one to kiss her tears away, and yet here I stood, away from sight.  
  
I never saw her again. It's ironic that it was her determined search for the truth that revealed to us the way home. We left the next day. And even though I'll always remember the pain of saying goodbye to my parents without them even knowing it, no physical pain in the universe could compare to what I felt when she didn't show up. Hopelessly I waited, my heart in my throat, overlooking the cliff the four of us occupied, just waiting for her to come. An eternity I would have waited, but Michael encircled my body and pulled me away from the edge, the apology present in his eyes as he pulled me into our ride home.  
  
Maria cried, Kyle's manly exterior finally broke down and he cried with her as the two walked away. Tess looked to me with an empty stare, knowing why it was that my eyes were so bleak. In that spaceship that looked nothing like the ones in cartoons, we took off, never to return. My eyes shut tightly as the others looked out the windows on our way up, drinking in the look of their childhood home for the last time. I couldn't look back. I didn't want to look back. From that moment I vowed to forget Liz, the girl that had broken my heart so very many times.  
  
Over the years, my anger subsided, and it was a good thing, for never would she leave my thoughts. Even at the beginning when I would cry out in torment as I dreamed of her face, it never could leave my subconscious. I've become accepting of her decision to not say goodbye; in the end, I think it was the least painful way to end it. I have to believe that had she shown up, nothing could have torn me away from her. I HAVE to believe that. If I don't, I just might end up hating her for leaving me to stand alone atop that cliff on our final day on Earth. And I don't ever want to hate her.  
  
I suppose nearly anyone else that exists in this thing we call life would be thinking of the battle right about now, the battle that has left me clinging to life with all I have in me. But I choose to block out all the blood and the memory of seeing the three closest to me in all the world crying out in pain as they were slaughtered, just as I have been. The blood leaves so fast once a wound is open; and with so many of them surrounding me there was no time to heal it. So I dropped to the ground in defeat, my kingdom shattered, my legacy over. And yet after all of this, still my mind returns to her.  
  
Liz. Just the sound of her name takes away some of my pain and replaces it with a warm feeling that flows through my body. I close my eyes and I can again see her big brown eyes as they search mine for the love she hopes to find returned. In my fingertips I can feel the silky strands of her rich dark hair that flowed down over her narrow shoulders. Reaching way back into the depths of my memory, I can again feel the joy in holding her small body close to mine as my lips meet with hers. I can feel her heart beating with fervor as her eyes meet mine, and I can feel again the love and respect I've always had for her in my soul.  
  
Her heart belongs to someone else now, I'm sure. The memory of me has probably been supressed in her mind to spare her the pain of thinking about what we had for that agonizingly short period of time. And still my own heart cries out to her, wanting her to know that my love for her has never stopped and will still be whispered in the soft wind as it dances in her hair. Forever and always my heart will belong to her and her alone. As I lay here dying, millions of miles away, and many many years later, I can only hope Liz knows that and can feel how I've yearned for her all these years.  
  
In my arms, I can feel that Tess has already slipped away, and I can tell I'll be soon to join her. I close my eyes and inhale for my last breath, and let go of this life that has taken me up and down so many different paths. As my heart stops beating I know only one thing to be absolutely true, and that is that Liz Parker made it all worthwhile.  
  
  
The end. 


End file.
